but I didn’t want to get into all the things I’d done to alienate her.
Charley turned around from the stove. “Why the hell not?”
“She doesn’t think being a game warden is a real career. She called it ‘a small boy’s idea of a cool job.’ ”
He laughed. “Well, of course it is! What’s wrong with that?”
As we ate I thought about how I’d bad-mouthed Sarah to the Stevens. Why was I always unfair to her that way? Maybe she did have some reservations about my job, and maybe she did worry too much about money, but she’d never actually asked me to quit being a warden. What the hell was wrong with the men in my family that we forced the women in our lives to leave us?
After breakfast, I asked to use the Stevenses’ phone. I got Sarah’s answering machine, and since she didn’t believe in screening calls-she saw it as an act of impoliteness-I knew she wasn’t home.
“Sarah,” I said. “I owe you an apology. I’ve made a lot of mistakes lately-you have no idea-but the way I treated you is the worst. I’m up at Flagstaff now. Some things have happened. I might not be a warden for very much longer. I’m not going to ask for a second chance, because I don’t deserve one. I just wanted to apologize one last time.”
When I came out of the bedroom, Ora was off somewhere and Charley was washing and drying the dishes with the police scanner going in the background. I asked him if he would fly me home to Sennebec. “I appreciate the hospitality you and Ora have shown me,” I said, “but I need to get back and face the music.”
“I understand,” he said, and I was surprised at the sadness in his voice. “I’ll go tell Ora.”
He disappeared down the hall. I stood looking out the windows at the smooth surface of the lake, a perfect mirror of the blue sky above. It was a beautiful sight, but it only made me feel more alone.
The phone rang. I heard Charley pick up in the bedroom, heard him say hello. Then he closed the door.
I waited, feeling my heart beginning to speed up.
Finally the bedroom door opened, and Charley came out. His expression was hard for me to decipher. “That was Soctomah. He just got off the line with Brenda Dean. I guess Truman got stirred up last night after our visit. He called over to Rum Pond wanting to know why Brenda was telling the authorities he killed those men. She told Soctomah he threatened her. She says she wants police protection.”
“You mean she’s still out there?” She’d told me she was just going to gather up her things yesterday and leave. If she really thought Russ Pelletier was a murderer, why did she spend the night? “So what’s Soctomah going to do?”
“He said he’d send a trooper out to Truman’s place to chat with him. And I told him I’d fly over to Rum Pond to see what’s up. That is, if you don’t mind making a stopover on the way home.”
It seemed that I was going back to Rum Pond one way or the other.
Charley had already gassed up the plane, readying it for another day in the air. Ora wheeled herself down to the dock to watch us depart.
“Well, Boss,” he said, kneeling down to kiss her. “We’re off into the wild blue.”
“Be careful.”
“You know me.”
“That’s why I’m saying be careful.”
“Thank you for everything, Ora,” I said.
“Please come back and see us again.” She took my hand in both of hers.
“I will.”
She smiled, but her eyes were full of doubt.
I climbed into the backseat while Charley gave the plane a shove away from shore, hopping after it again to land on the pontoon. He was as agile as a monkey getting in and out of that plane.
A minute later, after he’d strapped himself in and started the engine, we were skittering off across the lake. The air was dead still, but we rose as if swept aloft on a gust of wind. Charley turned so that we banked back over the cottage. I looked down and saw Ora wave at us from her wheelchair at the end of the dock. From this height she seemed so small and frail. And just like that, I felt a premonition that something very bad was about to happen.
The woods stretched out beneath us like a nubby green bedspread thrown over the hills. The glare of the sun, blazing white in the eastern sky, made it impossible to see far in that direction, but in the west I could clearly see the heavily forested mountains that marked the boundary with Canada, forty-some miles away.
Charley was uncharacteristically quiet. Every now and again he zigzagged the plane to pass over a clear-cut or to parallel a logging road for some distance. A couple of times he canted the plane completely onto its side to have a better look at something on the ground. I never saw anything but trees.
I tried to start a conversation over the intercom. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“Did you tell Brenda you’d talk to Truman?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
“I don’t like this. It doesn’t feel right.”
Between two mountains up ahead a body of brownish-blue water reflected the clouds. We came in directly over the forest gate that blocked the driveway leading from Wendigo’s logging road to Rum Pond. The stand of old- growth pines was still there. But for how much longer? I wondered. The next thing I knew we were over the water, making a sharp U-turn to approach the camp from the south. I looked for my father’s cabin on the eastern shore of the lake, but the pines hid it from view. We settled down with a splash on the water and began taxiing toward the compound of log buildings that was the sporting camp. I saw a motorboat moored at the dock and canoes drawn up on a beach, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.
As we drew up to the dock, a door opened at the main lodge and Russ Pelletier stepped out into the sun. He wore blue jeans and a paint-spattered canvas workshirt that looked too hot for this weather. On his belt was a big knife in a sheath. He didn’t raise his hand or greet us in any way, but remained standing there, smoking a cigarette on the doorstep, while the plane came to a stop.
“He doesn’t look too happy to see us, now does he?” said Charley.
“Not really.”
We climbed out of the plane and Charley tied a rope to a cleat to keep it from floating off. Side by side we walked up to the main building.
“Morning!” said Charley.
Pelletier’s mustache needed trimming, and his oil-black hair hung over his forehead in heavy bangs. “Hello, Charley.”
“Where are all your guests?”
“Left this morning. Don’t have any more until Friday. You always said I should probably close this place in August, given how little business I get.” He gave a smirk. The full sunlight showed the nicotine stains on his teeth. “But I guess I won’t have to worry about that problem soon, will I?”
“I guess not.”
He looked at me over Charley’s shoulder. “You’re here about Brenda, right? She’s over at Jack’s cabin.”
“You fired her then,” I said.
“No, she quit. She did it in front of my guests last night. Classy as ever. She doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, though.”
“We’ll talk with her,” said Charley pleasantly. “But first maybe you’ll invite us in for a cup of coffee.”
Pelletier exhaled a cloud of smoke. Was it really possible that he and Truman had set my dad up? I remembered the story Brenda had told about him-how he’d tried to rape her. At this moment, he looked capable of all the bad things she’d claimed.
“Sure,” he said finally. “Come on in.”
There wasn’t a trace of welcome in his voice.
We sat at one of the long tables in the dining room, across from him. Through the big plate-glass window that made up the southern wall of the room I could see the aluminum canoes on the beach and Charley’s plane moored at the dock.
“So I guess you’re looking for a new cook,” I said.
“Why? You want a job?” Pelletier crushed the butt of a cigarette in an ashtray. “Doreen said she’d help me out until I found someone.”
